The Dreyfus Affair: A Historic Injustice Unfolds

On January 5, 1895, 130 years ago, a small ship docked at "Devil's Island" in the Caribbean. Stern-faced officers dragged a tall man ashore, muttering curses in French. They left him on the beach and sailed away. There was little more needed, as there was no escape from Devil's Island, a tiny penal colony—a disease-ridden jungle with awful weather. Over time, 75% of the island's prisoner inhabitants perished.

This man was Alfred Dreyfus, and he was there not because he committed a crime, but because he was Jewish.

Alfred Dreyfus was an artillery captain in the French army, accused of espionage for France's nemesis at the time—Germany. After France's defeat to Germany in 1871, the country faced humiliating reparations, with Jews unjustly blamed. They loaned money to the French government to pay these reparations and were depicted as profiters, "bloodsuckers," and alleged supporters of the Germans.

The German spies in France were coordinated by the German military attaché in Paris, Maximilian von Schwartzkoppen. His cleaning lady was a shrewd French woman who pretended to be ignorant, illiterate, and clueless about what was spoken to her. Through cunning, she managed to steal the contents of his wastebasket. Without shredders, French counterintelligence agents could piece the papers back together and stay almost "online" with the spies working for Germany.

One of these documents was allegedly written by Alfred Dreyfus, supposedly providing information about the French army. Dreyfus faced a swift trial and was subjected to a humiliating public degradation in a central Paris square, where his ranks were torn off, his sword broken, and he was sentenced to exile on Devil's Island. The Dreyfus Affair sparked an antisemitic wave, "proving," as it were, Jewish treachery. Austrian journalist Theodor Herzl, who was sent to cover the event, suddenly realized that antisemitism existed independently and would always do so. He concluded that Jews must separate themselves from non-Jews.

Before long, it became clear that the document on which Dreyfus was convicted was a simple, crude forgery that no serious court would fall for. Intellectuals rallied with manifestos and public appeals for a retrial, which eventually led to a reduced sentence and ultimately a full pardon. Dreyfus was exonerated, yet countless Jews throughout history were hated, slandered, and even convicted in corrupt trials, leading the term "Dreyfus Trial" to symbolize a grave miscarriage of justice.